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Heres Davids specimen and the one off Christians site.
numi

Numi, what are your thoughts on Micks explanation for the colour shade on mine and Davids #5?

It seems very plausable that they are primed models and not sun faded?

David,

Are my eyes mistaken or has some one scribed the number 5 into the roof of your Europa?

I have managed to take some better pictures of my very light pink SF#5

It definately looks and feels like a primed car as Mick has described.

Ghosty had previously requested that i get the mould numbers off the wheels (thin hollow wheels) and i have managed as best i can to get them as follows

Front right- N28
Front left - F18
Rear right- F18
Rear left - N46

Now i have to admit that these mould numbers mean nothing to me, so perhaps someone more knowledgable can enlighten me on the significance of the moulding numbers. I should mention that some were quite hard to see and the number may be wrong, the letter prefix is however definately correct.

motorman wrote:Numi, what are your thoughts on Micks explanation for the colour shade on mine and Davids #5?

It seems very plausable that they are primed models and not sun faded?

Sorry MM,in this instant only your determination is crucial & final cos u have it in-hand and thanks for showing.
numi

For our benefit, wheel 'Mould Numbers' are useful in tying down a particular model to general production periods...'A' 'B' and 'C' letters being earlier than 'L' 'M' and 'N' etc. In many cases, the numbers will run consecutively, such as '28' and '29' can be found on the same axle, but the other axle may well have a '16' and '8' fitted.

The earliest 'Superfast' wheels tend to have a single letter or a single number, simply because Lesney had not realised the significance of badly moulded wheels, so to a point this was good enough, but when the 'Superfast' range became more and more successful, the need for more wheels resulted in some cost cutting, affect- ing the amount of plastic used in moulding the wheels and more faulty wheels turning up. The numbering was just made a little bit easier by using a letter and number together, starting at 'A' and running through the alphabet, but leaving out obvious letters that could be mistaken for numbers, 'o' 'i' etc.

Somewhere on this forum, it was mentioned that Christian...I think, has a fairly good record of wheel mould numbers, so it is worthwhile knowing of them and their relevance to our hobby, as much as 'tread counting' etc.

GHOSTHUNTER.

I've recently acquired a pale mauve 5e Lotus Europa which has interesting wheelsets. At the front are narrow hollow wheels from moulds F36 and N46, whilst the rear are solids from moulds 21G and 23C. The latter is numbered twice: once using a much larger type size than I have previously seen and this is followed by a normal-sized C23. The two numbers are so close together that the Cs are actually touching. The large 23C is about the twice the height of the normal lettering, is considerably thicker, and is a lot more raised. (In fact, I would say that it is very similar to standard baseplate text.